”Trust me, big mon,“ he said, lighting a cigarette. ”What's keeping the locals?“
”It probably got called in as barroom bullshit in the black district,“ I said. There was a whirring sound in my ears like wind blowing in seashells. I couldn't stop sweating. Clete propped his arm against the cloth top of Sweet Pea's car and glanced down into the backseat. ”Dave, look at this,“ he said.
”What?“
”On the floor. Under those newspapers. There's something on the carpet.“ The exposed areas of the carpet, where people's feet had crumpled and bunched the newspaper, looked brushed and vacuumed, but there were stains like melted chocolate in the gray fabric that someone had not been able to remove. ”We took it this far. You got a slim-jim in your tool box?“ Clete said. ”No.“
”So he needs a new top anyway,“
he said, and snapped open a switchblade knife, plunged it into the cloth, and sawed a slit down the edge of the back window. He worked his arm deep inside the hole and popped open the door. ”Feel it,“ he said a moment later, stepping aside so I could place my hand on the back floor. The stain had become sticky in the enclosed heat of the automobile. Hovering like a fog just above the rug was a thick, sweet smell that reminded me in a vague way of an odor in a battalion aid station. ”Somebody did some major bleeding back there,“ Clete said.
”Lock it up again.“
”Wait a minute.“ He picked up a crumpled piece of paper that was stuck down in the crack of the leather seat and read the carbon writing on it. ”It looks like Sweet Pea's got lead in his foot as well as his twanger. Ninety in a forty-five.“
”Let's see it,“ I said. He handed it to me. Then he looked at my face again. ”It means something?“ he said. ”He got the ticket yesterday on a dirt road out by Cade. Why's he hanging around Cade?“ In the distance I could hear a siren on an emergency vehicle, as though it were trying to find a hole through traffic at an intersection.
”Wait here. Everything's going to be copacetic,“ Clete said. ”Don't go back in there.“ He walked fast across the lot, entered the side door of the restaurant, then came back out
with his hand in one pocket.
”Why is it these dumb bastards always use the John to score? The owner's even got sandpaper glued on top of the toilet tank to keep the rag-noses from chopping up lines on it,“ he Said. He stood between my truck and the Cadillac and began working open a small rectangular cellophane-sealed container with two silhouetted lovers on it. ”You're one in a million, Cletus,“ I said. He unrolled a condom, then removed a piece of broken talc from his pocket, crushed it into fragments and powder, poured it with his palm into the condom, and tied a knot in the latex at the top. ”There's nothing like keeping everybody's eye on the shit bags By the way, they wrapped one of those roller towels from the towel machine around Patsy's head. Think of a dirty Q-Tip sitting in a chair,“ he said. He dropped the condom on the floor of the Cadillac with two empty crack vials and locked the door, just before an Acadian ambulance, followed by a Lafayette city police car, turned into the parking lot. ”Party time,“ he said. He crinkled his eyes at me and brushed his palms softly. The sheriff had never been a police officer before his election to office, but he was a good administrator and his general decency and sense of fairness had gotten him through most of his early problems in handling both criminals and his own personnel. He had been a combat marine, an enlisted man, during the Korean War, which he would not discuss under any circumstances, and I always suspected his military experience was related to his sincere desire not to abuse the authority of his position. When I sat down in his office the sun was yellow and bright outside the window, and an array of potted plants on his windowsill stood out in dark silhouette against the light. His cheeks were red and grained and woven with tiny blue veins, and he had the small round chin of the French with a cleft in it.
He reread my report with his elbows on the desk blotter and his knuckles propped against his brow.
”I don't need this on Monday morning,“ he said.
”It got out of hand.“
”Out of hand? Let me make an observation, my friend. Clete Purcel has no business here. He causes trouble everywhere he goes.“
”He tried to stop it, Sheriff. Besides, he knows Sonny Marsallus better than anyone in New Orleans.“
”That's not an acceptable trade-off. What's this stuff about a dead coon?“
I cleared a tic out of my throat. ”That's not in my report,“ I said.
”Last night I got a call at home from the Lafayette chief of police.
Let's see, how did he put it? “Would you tell your traveling clown to keep his circus act in his own parish?” You want to hear the rest of it?“
”Not really.“ Because I knew my straying into another jurisdiction, or even the beer pitcher smashed into Patsy Dapolito's face, was not what was on the sheriff's mind.
”What have you held back from me?“ he said.
I looked at him blankly and didn't answer.
”You're not the only one who chooses what to file a report on and what not to, are you?“ he asked.
”Excuse me?“
”Saturday I ran into a friend of mine with the humane society. He's a friend of Helen Soileau's. He mentioned a certain event he thought I already knew about.“
The sheriff waited.
”I don't believe in using the truth to injure good people,“ I said.
”What gives you the right to make that kind of decision?“